Understanding "traffic" to our hubs vs previous "traffic" to lenses

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   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   I've been hearing lots of positive posts from lensmasters whose lenses transferred to HP recently that their hubs are getting a lot more "traffic" than previously as Squidoo lenses.
   
   I too have noticed that my "traffic" is rising and I am hoping that it will be sustained thanks to the redirects of our lenses.
   
   Without being too intrusive, I am wondering is it apples to apples as I see "page views" being reported. It seems that some traffic to our lenses was not always reporting to our dashboards. I would note discrepancies from my statcounter account when compared to the dashboard. In previous discussions with Squidoo Support I was always told it's not the same thing. Am I asking a valid question?

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      relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      No.  You will want to use Analytics data about your Hubs for more accuracy and detail.  Your own editing will result in increased views in the in-house stats.

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         Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Also note that Google Analytics uses a calendar 24-hour day and that HubPages uses a rolling 24-hour time period, so these will never match up exactly. For HP Ad Program payments, the figures show the impressions which are split between you and HP: http://hubpages.com/faq/#impressions

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      carnyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If I recall correctly, Squidoo only counted 7-day unique visitors. If HubPages counts every page view, it's not surprising that theirs is higher.
      
      Personally, I'm already seeing a higher pageview count on my HubPages dashboard than I used to on Squidoo, even though it's been only 3 days since my lenses were transferred.

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      Tolovajposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If you want good comparison, you'll need the same method for both - lenses and hubs. Squidoo and HubPages had their own interpretations and it is definitely not apple to apple relation.
      But yes - in general HubPages will give you more organic traffic for the same articles. I had only occasional visits from Yahoo and Bing on Squidoo, but here are pretty frequent, and Google likes my articles on HubPages even more than before.

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2. 93

   Kylyssaposted 10 years ago

   I think we are actually getting more views, though.  Reporting couldn't have been that terrible on Squidoo and lenses that weren't even getting views at the very end get views now.
   
   I'm delighted with the increase in traffic.

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      vineliner57posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I've noticed my reported traffic is about 3x what is was on Squidoo, and earnings are about twice what they were over there. Regardless of how the traffic is reported, the fact that Amazon sales are up is an indication (to me) of a very nice upward trend in views.
      
      Anyway, back to the salt mines. I am not even halfway through fixing the 93 lenses that were brought over. I feel for the folks that had several hundred lenses imported.

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   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   Well, I personally had three methods of checking my stats on my lenses ... GA [google analytics], Squidoo dashboard, and statcounter. With statcounter, I was able to zero in on lots more interesting information too! So, now that we have only two methods, I will become more comfortable with GA and try not to go gaga over my stats.
   
   I know if you watch them too closely, no matter what the analysis method, that it can become a bit too much.
   
   VERY happy to see, though, that the page views are up and that you can sort that info on our HP dashboards to help make some decisions to keep the content here as a hub or move it.

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4. 83

   Coffee-Breakposted 10 years ago

   My views have also increased after the move, and I suspect that they will even more as I update all of my lense. Too early to comment on the monetization aspect, but it looks good.
   
   Comparing apples to apples, I had analytics setup with Squidoo, and I have analytics setup with HP. I compare the traffic in Google Analytics, and I have probably 70% more visitors now.
   
   The great thing is that even the other stats are better, such as bounce rate, and session duration.

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   nebbyposted 10 years ago

   What I find a bit puzzling is that most of the time the Squidoo stats closely matched the analytic information from affiliate programs but with HP they are way off.
   For example: 350 visitors to a lens, 365 impessions showing in affiliate stats. I believe that difference was related to the 7 day unique visitor count and that would make sense. At least it's close.
   Now with HP, a page that is getting 350 hits is only showing 20 or so impressions in the aff stats. Since we are talking impressions and not clicks it should be fairly close, even if a repeat visitor would show in the HP stats but not affiliate stats since they usually count only for unique visits. I can see if it is off by 50 or so but wer'e talking way more than that. And it's not with just 1 aff, but several.
   Perplexing to say the least.

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      neosurkposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Because HP takes 40%, the affiliate stats should be about 60% of the visits. I've found that the Google Adsense impressions is close to 60% than the HP ads.

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         nebbyposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         In particular I am talking about independent aff links, not those through the HP program.
         I'll have to monitor it for awhile and see the correlation between the two.
         
         I've had an HP account for years but never noticed it but now that I've brought over some lenses I am really noticing the difference.

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   robertzimmerman2posted 10 years ago

   Thanks for those responses. Makes more sense overall to me and I am just beginning to use AS. I had only ten lenses so I will have to gauge things when I write a bunch of hubs to add to that.

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   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   I've always also found it handy to see the chart graphs and often would convert to the area graph view to see the ebb and flow of the traffic over time. I guess time will tell on the sustainability of it all.

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   TonyPayneposted 10 years ago

   It's hard to compare Hupages counting every visit and Squidoo's counting only unique visits, but there is one statistic that is constant and that's Google Analytics.
   
   Comparing my stats from the changeover period, I see a dip for about 3 days as Squidoo was winding down and Hubpages gearing up, but now the stats look very similar.

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   julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

   Tony, excellent observation -- it helps to have the same analytical data to do a comparison of apples to apples. I'm thinking from this point onward, through the various holidays, it will be interesting the measure the analytics and do a comparison. Perhaps, pulling up the historical data too? I wonder how it will compare to last season at this time.

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      TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      With Analytics you can compare this year and last year on Squidoo for example, but if you wanted to compare last year on Squidoo with this year on Hubpages you would need to be able to overlay the two graphs, using Photoshop maybe. That's outside of my knowledge right now, but as long as my Hubpages traffic and earnings outperform what I had on Squidoo I don't know that I am too worried. Might be better to spend my time looking to the future rather than comparing to the past.

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    julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

    Tony, is it possible to export the data behind those graphs and then load them in Excel to graph the two series for a comparison chart? I am using Photoshop too and could see doing layers with transparency to do an overlay comparison.

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       TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Good thinking Julie, and YES you can export data from Analytics, either as CSV or Excel format.
       I never really tried it because I didn't have a need for it, but it wouldn't be hard to do this and to create a graph with both sets of values.

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    julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

    Tony, you have been such an inspiration in the analytics department [and other depts too]. It was your line graph that got me trying to do a merge of two traffic activities. I'd like to try that export and graph the two series. And hope for a revival.

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       TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       A revival is always good
       
       I just added my site to Google Webmaster Tools (should be already verified because of your Analytics code), and also added it to Bing Webmaster Tools (for what it's worth). Verifying is quite easy - just copy/paste the verification code into your Hubpages profile.
       
       Submitting a sitemap was a bit more complicated, but I found a Hub that explained what the link was for it.
       
       Hoping for a bit more traffic in the coming week as a result, but more I hope die to my editing efforts to patch my hubs up after a somewhat bumpy transfer across.

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          Dressage Husbandposted 10 years agoin reply to this

          I actually put the Hubpages onto the same analytics that I had used for Squidoo and the increase after the dip was a good 50% more traffic here. Since I am using the same Analytics ID my graph shows the sharp climb as my lenses came over. If you go to Quantcast and check the HP graph it looks identical to the graph for the whole of HP only less visitors for me!

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             TonyPayneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

             Actually that's a really good idea, especially as we are talking the same content. Wish I had thought of that    I used an Analytics id that I already set up for another Hubpages account, even though I don't have any hubs there. Should have done a bit of lateral thinking...

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    julieannbradyposted 10 years ago

    Tony,  I've got Google Analytics for the apples to apples comparison. As you suggested, I did try Bing, but I'm not sure once I hit the verify and the sitemap if I got that right.

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